Red Sox sweep away curse

Boston wins 1st World Series title since 1918

BOSTON — Outside Fenway Park, underneath a billboard with a picture of Manny Ramirez that said, "Keep the faith," Boston fans gathered as a lunar eclipse made the moon appear red.

Moments after the Red Sox had won the World Series, T-shirts were already for sale. The message on the front said it all: "Believe in Boston" over a picture of a four-leaf clover.

The long-suffering Red Sox hadn't just won the World Series, they'd scored a historic trifecta.

First, they won the American League pennant by becoming the only team in postseason history to come back from a three-game deficit, a feat attempted 25 times before and never achieved.

Then they became the first professional baseball team to win eight straight playoff games.

And finally--but most importantly for everyone swarming the streets of this city Wednesday night--they had at last broken the "Curse of the Bambino" to become the best team in baseball after an agonizing 86 years.

"The moon had a lunar eclipse, the planets are aligned and the moon is now red," said David Forney, 23, an MIT student. "All that had to fall into place for the Red Sox to win."

The Red Sox took the lead for good on the game's fourth pitch when Johnny Damon smacked a home run. When former White Sox pitcher Keith Foulke recorded the final out for Boston, it was time to celebrate.

"We wanted to do it so bad for the city of Boston. To win a World Series with this on our chests--it hasn't been done since 1918," Red Sox infielder Kevin Millar said. "So rip up those `1918' posters right now."

In the top of the eighth inning, when it became clear that the previously unthinkable might happen, police in riot gear began walking through the bars surrounding Fenway Park. The curse had yet to be broken, but they had donned their protective helmets. Plastic handcuffs hung from their belts. They fingered their wooden walking sticks.

They didn't say anything to patrons, but their presence was meant to send a message: "Riots aren't going to happen."

The city clearly was hoping to prevent a repeat of last week when some 60,000 people converged on the Fenway Park area after the pennant was won in New York. Fires were started in the streets and people tried to overturn cars; when police tried to disperse them, 21-year-old college student Victoria Snelgrove was fatally shot in the eye by what was supposed to be a non-lethal police weapon.

Every pub in the shadow of the Green Monster was virtually surrounded by police by the middle of Wednesday's game. The diehards looking for a night of baseball mania in Kenmore Square, the neighborhood adjacent to Fenway Park, even had a hard time getting into most bars.

Police--on motorcycles, on horseback, on foot--had the area on a virtual lockdown. Bars had been told that capacity limits would be strictly enforced, and lines were not allowed to form outside establishments in an effort to prevent raucous crowds from forming.

"We're at capacity for the night, fellas," the bouncer at Boston Beerworks was shouting to annoyed Red Sox fans even before the night's first pitch. "Go home and watch."

Most fans who gathered at Cornwall's, a longtime Sox hangout, were young and fresh-faced, their red baseball caps and sweatshirts yet to fade with age or grief.

Howard Randall, a lifelong fan, watched the game intently but admitted a win would be less for guys like him than for all the old men down in the South End, all guys who've lived in Boston all their lives, who remembered Babe Ruth himself and each and every one of the letdowns that have come in more than eight decades of autumns past.

"This is for their generation," he said. "Mine has suffered, but nothing like them."

As if to illustrate Randall's point, John Beale, 63, stood out of sight of the televisions in the pub's entryway.

"I'll watch the replays," he said, jaded. "But I can't watch it live. I've seen them fall apart too many times over the years."

Indeed, memories are long in Boston. They have to be.

The franchise won the first World Series in 1903, but back then the team, appropriately enough, was named the Pilgrims. The Red Sox, with Ruth, won the Series in 1915, 1916 and 1918--giving the club five of the first 15 titles.

After that auspicious start, the team's fortunes turned. It all came crashing down on Jan. 3, 1920. The popular slugger was sold to the Yankees by Boston owner Harry Frazee for $125,000 and a $350,000 loan.

Ruth angrily predicted the team never would win again. He was right for 86 years. Boston had played in four World Series since Ruth's departure, losing all in seven games each time--twice to the St. Louis Cardinals in 1946 and 1967. The Yankees, meanwhile, won 26.

It's a hex at which some cities scoff but one Chicago fans understand all too well--no Chicago team has won a World Series since the 1917 White Sox, and the Cubs hold the longest drought in baseball at 96 years (1908).

Some Cubs fans believe the Billy Goat Curse has kept their team from even making the World Series since 1945.